kitten update for sweetdogk




day one: 02.03.04




day two: 02.04.04


day three: 02.05.04


So the cats are slowly acclimating to the central coast. And while posts on pets make a lot of people roll their eyes and click on by, Kristin, my cohort in kitten keeping, left for a month-long trip only hours after the kittens got here. Lord knows we don't want to cheat anyone out of their god-given All Kitten All the Time experience, I'm going to do my best in the next month to keep La Sweet Dog K up-to-date on the little devils and their progress into early feline adolescence.

These friggin' cats are a handful and when I express this predictament to my mother on the phone she is propelled into a mother-retribution-for-adolescent-hell maniacal laughter. I'm serious, the more I tell her the harder she laughs.

He's hiding again and won't come out, I say and she starts to twitter.
They're tearing my house apart, I say and she giggles.
She's eating my plants, I say and she har hars.
I had to clean the bathroom three times in one day, I say and she snorts.
He peed on my comforter, I say and she begins to guffaw.
Three times!! I say and she can't even talk as the laughter has her doubled over.

Tom thinks these kittens are about babies, and I rest him assured, they are not. I mean, as far as I know they aren't. I wanted to rescue an older pound cat. That was the goal. And I'd been to the pound several times in the last few months looking for a Cat to Call My Own. To no avail, the pound left me overwhelmed and sad and confused. How can you choose only one in a room full of 140 eyes of desperation and mewly sadness?

So, when Marcus said he had kittens, siamese kittens no less, I expressed interest. But, he lives in Houston, so it's not like I took it seriously. Or thought he would take me seriously. But he did. And he did all the footwork to get the kits out here. They went from Texas Critters to Calicats in one little day.

Charlotte (- York Goldenblatt as we are thinking of naming her in honor of you know what; we don't care if this makes us look ridiculous or silly) is definitely the adventuress of the two. If I were to guess which of these cats would go on to a great career climbing the Himalayas or starring on female versions of Jackass, Charlotte would be the sure thing. She's friendly and inquisitive and bold and unwavering. And kind and generous as she can spend hours licking the inside of her brothers ears.

Chapin (named after what Shawn Colvin calls Mary Chapin Carpenter — I saw them in concert and loved the nickname) is way more reclusive if not down-right scared out of the seat of his furry white-striped kitten pants. He likes to be hidden away, say in the back of a refrigerator or in the comfy coziness that is the spot between the wall and the sofa. Better to commune with the spiders and dust bunnies, I think. Lucky for him cobwebs are in and make a great fashion statement when hung oh-so-sexily from the whiskers.

Chapin is going to be the tough one. I refuse to have timid, scaredycat, twitching cats living under my roof. And as the more obvious siamese of the two, Chapin's got Wizard's legacy to uphold and this includes loving to hang upside down while the humans scratch your belly. Or at the very least, being the House Ambassador, eager to greet all who enter the Kingdom of the Apartment Dwellers. So my tactic is soothing voice to gain the trust and as much lap time as he can handle.

So lap time it is. Both have barely left my lap all afternoon. In fact, I suspect that I am the new Kitten Tree. I'm their favorite place to snooze and play and groom. Which is pretty dang darn cute, if I do say so myself. And since they are gaining a quarter of a pound a week who knows how long dual lap cat time will last?

Not long if I keep treating them with the special extra-rich cat food the vet so graciously donated to us. And given Charlotte's propensity to stink up a room quicker than a linebacker in a locker room after the team chili and beer bash, the special extra-rich cat food might become a rare commodity and maybe their babiness will extend just a little longer.